(Not So) Secret Identity
by Irhaboggle
Summary: Kara THINKS her identity is secret, but the truth is, ALL of CatCo knows the truth. Lucky for her, they pretend they don't have a clue at all. Instead, they find her pathetic attempts at secrecy to be one of the best things about working at CatCo. Poor Kara never even realizes...


"Kara, can you-?" Cat Grant had just called out to her employee when the employee cut her off.

"Uh, yeah, Ms. Grant, I'm terribly sorry, but can you just give me a minute?" she pleaded. Cat was taken aback. Seldom did any of her employees have the gall, or the outright stupidity, to talk back to or interrupt her. For a moment, rage and indignation flashed across her face as she readied herself to discipline her out-of-line worker, but the second before she opened her mouth, she remembered. Ah yes, this was Kara Danvers. Supergirl. Maybe the girl had yet to ever say it out loud, but everyone who knew Kara knew that she was Supergirl. Though she thought otherwise, Kara was terrible at hiding her secret identity. The entirety of CatCo knew Kara's secret, though they all still pretended to be ignorant to it. This included Cat. To her, pretending to remain ignorant to Kara's secret was a sign of deep respect, even if Kara's disguise was painfully paper-thin, even more so than the paper used to print the CatCo newspapers.

"Now Kara, you know I don't like being talked back to, and as your employer, I expect you to do the tasks I assign you to do. Do you understand?" the woman crossed her arms and straightened her back, trying to be as controlling and intimidating as possible.

"Yes ma'am," like magic, Kara's shoulders, head and eyes lowered submissively. An amused smile twitched at Cat's lips. Silly little girl. God-like hero though she was, she was still shy, nerdy, awkward, innocent little Kara. But Cat wasn't done grilling Kara.

"Kara! Remember! We talked about this as well! Maintain good posture and direct eye contact when talking with a superior!" she commanded and, again, like magic, Kara straightened right back up, leveled her chin, met her eyes to Cat's. Another smile twitched at Cat's lips. If nothing else made it clear that Kara and Supergirl were one in the same, the way Kara held herself in moments like this should've been a big red flag. Standing there, with perfect posture and an obedient but self-confident stare, Kara looked exactly like National City's favorite hero.

"Anyway, what is it you needed?" Cat demanded, finally deciding to humor Kara a little. Kara managed to maintain her posture, but the nervous and flitty stuttering in her voice, mixed with suddenly fiddling with her glasses again, made it all too clear to Cat that her allowance for Kara to make her request had caught her a little off guard and she didn't really have a good lie ready for this particular time.

"Ah, well, you see, I just got called in by a friend who really needs my help and-" Kara began lamely. Cat raised an eyebrow, not at the demand, but at the poor delivery. Seriously, the girl could not lie or hide or create a good alibi to save her life! This was National City's savior? But Kara misread Cat's incredulous look as one of annoyance instead of disbelief.

"I promise it'll only be a few minutes! 20 tops!" Kara pleaded, eyes finally losing some of their composure to desperation. Cat pretended to tut, shaming both Kara's slipping composure and her demand for time off of work.

"You really do know I hate it when my workers leave before their work is done, yes?" Cat demanded.

"Yes ma'am," Kara bowed her head a little, but then stopped and forced herself to meet Cat's eyes again. This time, they were filled with approval.

"Just promise me that you'll come back in time to finish your duties," she said and Kara was gone in a flash. Cat watched her go with a dry smile and then, under her breath where not even Kara could hear her, she said, "Go get 'em, Supergirl!"

But Cat hadn't been kidding when she'd thought that the entire office of CatCo knew about Kara's not-so-secret identity. Someone else who knew, though he pretended not to, was James Olsen. He was Superman's best friend and it had been Superman who gave him the task of looking after Supergirl. For that reason, James had known Kara's not-so-secret identity even before he'd met her, but after seeing that the girl was trying to keep it secret, he respectfully never brought up the fact that he knew who she really was. Instead, whenever she made some sort of slipup, he would be there to help act as a coverup to protect her (not-so) secret identity.

"Ummmm, Kara, what is that?" James asked one day, seeing the girl reading a book in what looked vaguely like Kryptonian.

"Oh! This! Uhhh, it's nothing!" Kara slammed the book shut and threw it into her desk drawer. She had thrown it harder than she meant to, however, and both she and James could hear a violent crash from within the drawer. Kara cringed and couldn't meet James' eye.

"Stupid desk drawers," James covered for her. "Those things break so easily! You think someone like Cat could afford sturdier appliances!" he pretended to play dumb about what Kara had just done to her desk and Kara quickly seized the opportunity to try and laugh it off with him.

"Yeah! Ha, ha, stronger desks! That would be nice!" she agreed lamely, giving a forced laugh. James fought the urge to laugh with her. Seriously, could this girl be any worse at keeping a secret? She even fiddled with her glasses too! If she ever really wanted to get good at making her not-so-secret identity a real secret, she was going to have to lose that telling little tic of hers...

"Anyway, was that for, like, a college class or a project or a club, or something?" James wanted to see what lame lie Kara was going to use to explain the Kryptonian text she was reading. It was just as bad as he'd predicted.

"No," she said. "I was reading it because I'm studying news and media in other cultures and that was just some rare, obscure language from some rare, obscure country in a rare, obscure part of the planet!" if the over-wording hadn't been a red flag, her hopeful smile was.

Instead of looking confident, it looked more like she was silently asking him if her lie had resonated with him. He fought the urge to laugh, again, and took it all in stride, pretending as thought Kara's lie had been a perfectly normal, believable truth.

"Well, that's cool," he said, and although a small part of him wanted to ask Kara what "rare and obscure" part of the world she was supposedly studying about, he didn't have the heart to push her anymore. Instead, he only bade her a good day before moving along down the rows and rows of other desks and cubicles scattered in the room. As he left, he heard Kara heave a sigh of relief. That girl really did need to work on subtlety!

But not every coworker was as courteous and considerate as James. Some of them, like Winn Schott, enjoyed making Kara squirm a little. To him, watching her dance circles around him trying to come up with plausible lies was half the fun of being her friend! It made his day to intentionally egg her on and make her dangle a bit before letting her go again. Like everyone else in the office, though he knew full well who she really was, he had no intention of forcing her to come clean until she decided to do so on her own time. But that didn't mean he couldn't push and play around with her every now and then, did it?

"Hey, Kara! What's up?" he greeted the alien in disguise.

"Ah, just proofing more of these manuscripts," Kara shrugged, gesturing to her computer, which was flooded with Word and Google docs.

"Fun," Winn said, sounding quite bored as he looked over Kara's shoulder at the screen.

"Work," Kara replied with a chuckle, then she turned back to the monitor, but Winn wasn't done yet.

"Anyway, I came here to ask if you wanted to go out with me and a few friends later tonight after work!" he said. "There's a really cool restaurant on the west side of the city that's having some special deal night where it's all you can eat for like $10! Pretty sweet, huh?"

"Oh, uhhh, yeah, I was actually going to just stay a little late tonight and try and finish up these manuscripts," Kara said. She was fiddling with her glasses again. "But maybe I can join you some other time? Or maybe if you guys were planning on doing dessert afterward...?" she asked.

"What? Kara Danvers? Is that really you that's talking?" Winn pretended to grow suspicious, narrowing his eyes at Kara.

"What do you mean?" Kara, herself, suddenly began to sound nervous. While a normal person might've laughed Winn's teasing off, because Kara was far from normal, it concerned her that she might've just said, or done, something to clue Winn on that fact. Little did she know that Winn already knew her dirty little secret and was only toying with her.

"You!" Winn replied, egging Kara on. "Not wanting to go out and stuff your face for cheap! Since when did the real Kara Danvers ever turn down such an opportunity?" he placed his hands on his hips in mock anger and distrust. "Are you even human?" he asked, and this was the real stinger that he knew for a fact made Kara get hyper nervous every single time it was asked. Once again, a normal person would be able to laugh such a question off, but since Kara wasn't technically human, that question always made her blood run cold. She had no idea Winn was just teasing her and she had no idea he already knew the answer to that question.

"Of course I am!" she snapped, but she said it a bit too loud, a bit too fast, a bit too passionately. She instantly realized that she had half-shouted this answer at Winn and reigned in immediately, sitting back in her chair and fiddling with her glasses. That was another tic Winn had since picked up on. Kara did it whenever she was lying, especially if it was about her alert ego.

"Ok, jeez, it was just a joke," Winn pretended to raise his hands in mock surrender. "No need to bite my head off!"

"I'm sorry, Winn," Kara apologized at once, looking genuinely regretful at having snapped at him. It didn't even occur to her that he had taken her anger in a different direction. While she thought he was hurt by her tone, in actuality, he was pleased by it because it only confirmed his already confirmed-theory that Kara was Supergirl. Why else would such a casual question have evoked such a strong remark? But Kara, clueless as ever, didn't even think to pick up on this and it didn't ever occur to her that anyone, let alone silly and playful Winn, knew her "secret" identity. Sadly for Kara, hers was a not-so-secret identity and the rest of CatCo knew about it too...

"Hi! Uh... yeah! Uhhh, this is Kara Danvers, and I think I'm going to have to reschedule that meeting... Yeah. Yeah! I'm really sorry, but I just got an, uhh, emergency distress call that I kind of have to take care of... and... Oh! You're ok with it? Really? You are? Oh! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you so much!" Kara clicked off her phone at once then went sprinting down the halls of CatCo. National City needed Supergirl once again, but first, Supergirl had to cancel an interview with someone. Lucky for her, that someone had some free time the very next day and had been gracious enough to let Kara off the hook for today.

With consent given, Kara wasted no time in turning into her super, alter ego. As she ran by, her coworkers watched her, hiding smiles and laughter behind hands and manuscripts for next week's papers. Poor, sweet little Kara Danvers, off to save National City once again. Of course, she wouldn't be saving their city under that name, rather, she would be using her alter ego of Supergirl, but everyone in CatCo knew the truth. It was so obvious! Their faces were the same, they were never seen in the same place together. They had similar tics and mannerisms, like stuttering when nervous or being overly cheerful or passionate, especially about social justice issues. They were both unafraid to stick up for those in need and they were both a tad self-righteous. They also both had the same little scar right above their eyebrow.

Try as she did, Kara was horrible at hiding her "secret" identity, and as she continued to zoom along at speeds bordering the impossible, some of her coworkers rolled their eyes, wondering why she didn't just come clean and say who she really was. But their respect was high enough that instead of ever demanding an answer from the young woman, they only pretended not to notice how impossibly fast she was running. Then, when Kara removed her glasses and tore her blouse open, exposing the Supergirl uniform she wore beneath her civilian clothes, eyes reflexively turned away. Then, when Kara accidently opened the main door to the building hard enough to break the handle and bend a hinge, those in the vicinity stifled their laughter and only went to fix the door before Kara returned from her Supergirl duties.

"Go get 'em, Supergirl!" they muttered, though they knew that they could never say this to Kara's face. The moment the danger was over, Supergirl would vanish and Kara would conveniently return from her "emergency distress call" at around the same time, acting like nothing had happened...

Sure enough, about 15 minutes later, Kara was back.

"Whew! Glad that's taken care of! Sorry I'm late!" she cried as she tried to walk calmly back inside CatCo. No one had the heart to tell her that there was still grime on her face from her battle and everyone pretended to ignore the fact that she smelled like burning metal. Instead, they covered it all up for her and pretended not to notice.

"What was that all about?" Winn was the only one bold enough to even call Kara out a little bit.

"Family drama," Kara lied easily enough.

"Ooof," Winn frowned. "Is anything out of the ordinary?" the whole office didn't miss Kara's slip in composure and subsequent fiddling with her glasses. Asking Kara if anything was, or wasn't, normal was the best way to get her nervous (outside of making "are you even human?" jokes).

"Oh, yeah, normal family stuff," she stuttered. "I mean, drama stuff, but normal drama. You know what I mean?" she asked helplessly.

"Yeah, you're only human. We all have home issues sometimes. Totally not weird at all!" Winn said smugly and Kara gave a nervous smile.

"Yeah," she agreed awkwardly. "We're all totally human who all have flaws and issues, but at the end of the day, everything is all good and totally ordinary and normal and we're all good!" she gave an awkward thumbs up before practically sprinting away from Winn and back to her own desk. Her coworkers snickered in reply while Winn looked quite pleased with himself, but no one said a word.

Kara's coworkers were also good at ignoring her more random and telling remarks (such as constantly saying that she was human) and claiming that she was only being eccentric, but the entire office was in silent, unanimous agreement that this wasn't the only reason for her strange mannerisms. It was funny, while Kara thought she was hiding a big secret from the office, they were hiding one just as large from her. The only difference was that they were way better at keeping their secret. Poor Kara never even had a clue!

**AN: This is set in S1 but it is in reference to ALL the times Kara should've been caught, or was caught, to the point that there's no reason for her to hide her identity since it seems like all of National City (minus Lena for some reason) already knows anyway. And it's also in reference to what a bad liar Kara is. I was thinking about her "I flew here! On... on... a bus!" line in S2, even though this fic is set in S1.**

**My inspiration also came from a writing prompt that said: "You work in an office with a superhero that thinks their identity is secret. In reality, everyone knows, but they all cover for the hero, even if the hero slips up and makes the reveal multiple times."**


End file.
